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3Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

7And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

8And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

11And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s passover.

12For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.

13And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

23For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

26And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

27That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

Just a few thoughts about the Passover….

The LORD went to a great deal of ‘trouble’ to deliver the nation of Israel from Egypt. It is clear from this and other events in the Bible that the greater the significance of the spiritual truth being conveyed, the greater the pains that were taken to convey it symbolically. The specific means by which the LORD chose to deliver His OT People from Egypt teach us specific things about the means by which the LORD chose to deliver His NT People.

The symbolic Passover elements of a pure lamb being slain, its blood being applied to each dwelling and the removal of leaven from each dwelling all have rather obvious spiritual applications in the NT Plan of Salvation.

In order to deliver the nation of Israel from Egypt, the LORD delivered each individual house from the destroyer that visited death upon the nation of Egypt that night. The ultimate aim was corporate or national deliverance, but it was achieved personally and individually.

The historical context of the word “Passover” is sometimes misunderstood. The Hebrew word pesach as a noun denotes the original deliverance event and the yearly commemoration of it; as a verb (“pass over”), it denotes the actions of the LORD passing over or leaping over each blood-stained doorway and preventing the destroyer from entering the house. These symbols foretold Repentance, Water Baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost.

The Passover was not – as is often represented in the popular religious media – an act of the LORD making a detour around each of the ritually protected households of Israel as He went through the land executing judgment; rather, the Passover was a deliberate act of personal deliverance at the doorway of each house that was in compliance with the LORD’s commandments – in which the LORD personally prevented the destroyer (labeled by some as the Angel of Death) from entering that house and slaying the firstborn as it traveled through the land of Egypt executing judgment.

The Passover deliverance was but the first stage of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land as a Redeemed People. After they left Egypt, the Lord began to give them His Laws, an anointed priesthood, and a divinely appointed place of worship. These things were never mentioned while Israel was in Egypt. After the Passover, these became part and parcel of the covenant between God and Israel.

The Passover is to be distinguished from the Atonement in that God used the Passover to deliver His People when they were in bondage, while the Atonement was given to a Redeemed people as the means of bringing them back into oneness with their Redeemer whenever they became estranged from Him by sin. At Calvary, Jesus Christ was our Passover – the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world – as well as the Sin Offering of Atonement; since Pentecost, He is our High Priest and continually makes intercession for us.

Rev. Tim D. Cormier

(C) Copyright held by Tim D. Cormier. This document may not be reproduced in whole or in part, except for personal use, without the express written permission of the author.